The next line in this is “In numbers too big to ignore”! As empowering as this song is, so is a recent Wall Street Journal article, “Clients Want to Work With Female Advisers, and Firms Are Taking Notice.” I found this interesting for a few reasons. Primarily, because after being a woman in finance, I am keenly aware of the fact that it is an industry that pays woman FAR less than men. The average gender pay gap in the United States is women get paid 78-82% of what the average man makes, but in finance women typically make about 56.4% of what men make. So basically, a female financial adviser makes half what a man makes. Not surprisingly, it is therefore not a female heavy profession. In 2017 only about 14% of financial advisers were women.

It makes sense to me that people would be drawn to female financial advisers. You would think finance is all about the numbers, but it isn’t at all. It is about your children, your future, that purse or watch you really want, but still question “Who would spend that much on that?”. It is charities that you deeply care about. It is your health, your legacy, your life. These are not quantifiable. This is who you are deep down, your emotions, your true being. Yes, it can be how much the market is up or down or what stock is a must buy, but that isn’t everything. Your adviser is who you go to when there is a death in the family, when your kids go to college, when you get married or divorced. Often they become like family or like a therapist. You bear all your wants and dreams to them. You have friends you wouldn’t share that much with, close friends. I don’t want to generalize, but often you feel more comfortable discussing emotional things with women, and often women are more comfortable hearing emotional things. There are exceptions on both sides of course. I also found that wives often didn’t want to come to the finance meetings or didn’t feel comfortable with financial discussions. I wonder if with another woman to sympathize, if this may be a bit easier.

I had a friend, whose colleague asked her to join a meeting, because he needed “a skirt” in the room. Now remember I got into Finance just a little over 10 years ago, not during the “Mad Men” years. To me this is a machismo way to acknowledge the comfort having another female around can bring. Women are “leaning in” and becoming masters of their industries, but they are still human. Having someone to talk to who understands the balancing act a woman plays daily between work and family, keeping her femininity, but still demanding respect, and all the other roles we balance, cannot be undermined.

I think it is time for women to flood this industry. We are competent and compassionate. I also think we need to do something about that pay gap. The growth of the female population in our industry has been stagnant for years. If the larger companies want to change that, as the article stated, I think the pay check would be a great place to start. Hey, we care, but we aren’t stupid. We know our value and it is time they do too.